


harp-string hum

by signal



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: A Brief Foray into Quidditch, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Maturity, Everyone Loves Donghyuck, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Herbology Lessons, Kissing, M/M, Platonic Cuddling, Truth Serum, Veritaserum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 19:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18723127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signal/pseuds/signal
Summary: It isn’t until Jaemin slumps across their table at breakfast a few days later, in tell-tale melodramatic Jaemin Na fashion like a dying Romeo and whines about how the Potion’s assignment is draining him dry, that Donghyuck jolts up in a shock with chunks his Periwinkle Pasty tumbling out of his mouth.“Merlin’s dick,” he spits, ignoring everyone else’s disgusted looks. “Are youdone?”“Are you not?” Renjun asks back, dry.Or, in which poor planning on Donghyuck's part lands him in a world of emotional turmoil, and stuff. Of truth potions, coming to terms with yourself, and Slumbersprigs.





	harp-string hum

**Author's Note:**

> hello folks i've been ignoring my enrara and in a spur of energy after my midterms finished, i picked up something i've been planning for ages and finally completed it. some notes:
> 
> \- for the sake of this fic, even though upon further research ppl use veritaserum for more innocuous things other than interrogationfdjkgnjdfk, let's consider it can come in different doses/different exposures to it result in different effects, it's not incredibly deep just unusual and annoying. my guy is jus dealing with a cold for a while
> 
> \- there is jsut a lot of friendship with a side-helping of nohyuck friends 2 lovers i' mso sorry?
> 
> \- 99 line are 7th year. 00 line are 6th year. 01/02 are 5th year
> 
> \- i do this thing where i include a lot of backstory and built up context in my writing and it always helps if i want to make something a series, so if u enjoy this and would like to see more in this universe lemme know!!!!!!

If Donghyuck is sure of anything, it’s that the foundations of his dignity start crumbling like cotton candy the moment a drop of water hits it on his first Potions class after their mid-term break.

He strolls into the dungeons five minutes before class begins as per usual; promptly tackling a loitering Jeno against the stools of their usual table into a stifling hug around the other’s waist, fingers digging into his flank and making him jerk against him in surprise. The professor is fiddling with something on his desk, but merely shakes his head at the prospect of having to deal with Donghyuck for the rest of the term and leaves them be.

“My dearest, sweetest Moony,” he croons into his shoulder, ignoring the loud complaint from a fellow house member in the room about how he can be _this_ loud _this_ early, “the many days since I felt your touch have been heart-breaking.”

“You saw me at breakfast, idiot,” Jeno wheezes out. He still manages to sound warm though, a consistent Jeno habit even when he’s exasperated. He hugs Donghyuck back anyways, attempting to squeeze him back a little more in revenge and promptly failing.

It’s warmer weather now, meaning it wasn’t obligatory to wear the stifling robes that made everyone feel like they were still in the 20th century, and so it’s easier to crush Jeno with all of his love without all that useless fabric in the way. Doesn’t hurt that Jeno looks stunning both with his hands swamped in said fabric, or in the tailored fit of a dark jumper. Donghyuck digresses, a little bit of cotton getting into his mouth.

Slytherin-Hufflepuff relations are more tepid than most, so nobody scorns them for being so gross early in the morning. Also, the fact that Jeno has spent half of his time being smuggled into the Slytherin common room throughout his years at Hogwarts has definitely eased any inter-house tensions. At this point, Jeno is the house mascot, much to his Hufflepuff friends’ demise.

A pinching at his neck gets Donghyuck off of Jeno in a heartbeat, recoiling as he’s being tugged off like a mother wolf taking its pup by the scruff.

“Ow, ow, ow!” He whines at that, twisting to smack at the back of his neck where thin fingers are grasping him but failing to dislodge them. “I give, I give!”

“Leave Jeno alone for like, half of a second,” Renjun’s voice is dry, but he can’t hide how entertaining it must be to see Donghyuck in pain. He’s a demon.

Donghyuck slumps back on the stool beside Jeno, ignoring his grin.

“You are the worst. The utter worst.”

“Nooo, he’s right,” Jaemin’s deathly sweet voice comes then as he places his bag underneath the table on the hook provided, sitting opposite Jeno and grinning at Donghyuck infuriatingly from across the table. “You just don’t know how to stifle your feelings at any given moment.”

Donghyuck narrows his eyes at Jaemin, especially when Renjun smacks his forearm with a stifled smirk. So what, if Donghyuck was essentially _tragic_ in dealing with his stupid feelings for Jeno? He was doing his best.

“I like to think I’m as readable as a — well. A closed book, at least.”

“Wonderfully witty of you as ever, Lee,” the professor’s voice calls out from the front of the classroom, effectively wiping out all wisps of conversation. Donghyuck purses his lips, slightly embarrassed as a chuckle bounces around the room, and as everyone else takes their seats. “With that statement, shall we continue the curriculum?”

The class goes well, better than expected at least. Donghyuck even keeps up with the rehash session that leaves even Renjun stumped for a moment, and Jeno is impressed, which is like top tier success for Donghyuck. He picked this class as an elective despite the fact the teacher clearly wasn’t fond of his kind of personality and enjoyed it all the same.

It’s only when they hit the 75% mark of the class duration, does his downfall begin.

“As we’re three quarters of the semester in, we need to start thinking about pre-N.E.W.T.S assignments to gear you up for the curve. This isn’t like your exams last year, and practice makes perfect, of course. And our task for the term is…”

The professor picks up a shiny vial, filled with golden liquid and shakes it gently as he moves back to the middle of the class. Donghyuck can’t decipher what it is, but it looked pretty. That was pretty much enough for him.

“I’d like you to attempt to concoct an everlasting elixir in pairs. All of the possible elixirs for brew availability for sixth year level will be in the _Advanced Magical Potions_ textbook issued at the start of the year. Please let me know if you have any questions, and…”

Donghyuck reaches out, slipping an arm into Jeno’s and pulling him a little closer before anyone can say anything. He’s a solid weight against him, an easy give.

“Dibs on Jeno.”

“You can’t call dibs on Jeno, genius. He’s a person,” Jaemin snarks quietly, so the teacher won’t snap at any of them again, and Donghyuck makes a mocking face back, crushing Jeno further into him.

“My person, my dibs.”

Jeno huffs out a laugh and extricates himself slowly, patting Donghyuck on the forearm gently when the latter turns to pout at him in betrayal.

“I’ve been dibs’d, I guess.”

Other than the fact he would be easy on the eyes whilst Donghyuck slaved painstakingly over their (shared) cauldron, jokes aside: everyone knew that out of all of them, Jeno was the Potions expert between their four. It was impressive, frankly.

“I can’t believe you stole him out from under us like that,” Jaemin groans, squishing his cheek against his hand as he rests an elbow on the table and glowers over at Donghyuck, who’s positively radiating with utter joy at ruining Jaemin’s life and securing Jeno.

“I can go elsewhere?” Renjun says, with an unimpressed slide of his gaze at Jaemin, drumming his fingers across the wooden lab table. “That’s perfectly fine.”

Jaemin turns at that immediately, covering Renjun’s hand with his own and pulling it closer to him, to covet at his chest.

“I would never stray from you, my dear,” Jaemin says in a pinched tone, a beaming smile of kilowatt directed at a non-reacting Renjun.

Donghyuck snickers at that, halting when their professor glances over again. He gets he’s being super obnoxious about the whole thing, but he realises that this is probably the chance to prove he’s serious about his studies in the upcoming face of final exams, his upcoming final year.

They still had the remainder of sixth to go yet, and his O.W.L.S didn’t go awfully, but the prospective of finality and the future was there; a consistent looming presence that mocks him every other class or so. There’s a lull in the information when the teacher lets them discuss and pick partners, and Donghyuck takes his chance before he can think about it properly.

“ _Professor_ ,” he says in a tone that makes Jaemin roll his eyes and pull their teacher’s attention to them, “this potion concoction test. Is it no holds barred? Or, you know. Are some holds a little bit barred?”

The professor smiles blithely at him, before tapping their table with two fingers twice.

“Work within your limitations, Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck tries not to wilt at the obvious dig at his skill level but fails anyway. Jeno, from beside him, frowns. He jostles him then, with an elbow into his side lightly but insistent. He turns, and tries not to visibly stutter at Jeno, who’s leaned in towards him with a hand curled around his own face, smiling, constant and kind and _pretty_. Ugh.

“Do you have any suggestions?” Jeno asks softly, between them and them alone. “I’m okay if you want to take the reins, you know? I trust you.”

Donghyuck thinks a little on that, moving away from his own heart beating 10-20-40 at the proximity between them — that’s nothing new, and instead trying to push on to what they could make. What would set them above the rest, exactly?

“I got this, don’t even worry about it,” he reassures himself and Jeno at the same time, tapping his fingers against the fine wood table and looking up at the professor as he moves on from project explanation to wax poetic about next lesson’s subject material: the intricacies of using moonwort in skin treatment elixirs.

 

*

 

You know, now that he thinks about it, he most definitely does NOT got this. He, frankly, has never been less organised in his entire life, and he lived through the _Nakamoto Trials_ of third year.

(Him sprawled against the green with a torn jumper, a cut and bruise under his eye and clutching one of Yuta’s patented golden pendants rendered him one of the most iconic Slytherins of that year.)

N.E.W.T prep is a complete joke.

Despite the fact they don’t have to tackle these exams until seventh year, pre-N.E.W.Ts preparation was a real thing, and Donghyuck finds himself preparing essays, drafting potion combinations and researching the Ministry of Magic’s tier 1 entry requirements — so much so that he forgets all about his and Jeno’s little Potions project he said he was _totally_ all over.

It isn’t until Jaemin slumps across their table at breakfast a few days later, in tell-tale melodramatic Jaemin Na fashion like a dying Romeo — because in Mark’s quest to introduce Donghyuck to the various Media of the Muggle World, (or MOTMW as Donghyuck had taken to calling it), he’d genuinely spent a week and a bit covering Shakespeare’s historic finest — and whines about how the Potion’s assignment is draining him dry, that Donghyuck jolts up in a shock with chunks his Periwinkle Pasty tumbling out of his mouth.

“Merlin’s dick,” he spits, ignoring everyone else’s disgusted looks. “Are you _done_?”

“Are you not?” Renjun asks back, dry.

“Um, no, I’m—almost done, okay?” He hurries back, a little horrified he was almost caught slipping. Complete lie, that. He finds its easier to completely fib than doing what would probably be easier, asking for help from his closest friends in the same damn class as him. Honestly, apart from flicking through a few potion crafting volumes in their House study room, he’s not done much.

Jeno isn’t at their table for once, Donghyuck notes as he cranes his head over Renjun and sees him hovering over a final year Donghyuck doesn’t know all that well, and Jisung. He’s grinning, all moon-eyed at what someone across from him has said, and he realises he can’t possibly let this guy down.

So that’s how he finds himself on the fourth-floor library, just nearly getting onto the right staircase to take him there. He isn’t here… ever, really. It’s populated by Ravenclaws, and also Doyoung always managed to get in here last year, for some reason, but it’s limited to seventh years only which means Donghyuck is technically breaking the rules but: a. it’s never stopped him before, and b. it also has the most diverse number of tomes to scour through. It had to be done.

Sure, they were told to look through the required textbooks for help, but Donghyuck wanted something that would give them an edge. Something special. There weren’t that many everlasting elixirs either, so whatever he’d find here would most likely be in their required book anyway.

He’s on his tip-toes, hand braced on a dusty shelf as he thumbs over the spines of the books to see if any of these books could help him in any way. He halts, delicately pulling a purple book out with gold lettering spelling out _Advanced Drafts and Potions from the 1940s_. He flicks through the pages, a little drawn in by the nice illustrations and the detailed brewing instructions, but the smell… isn’t right.

It feels like its curling around his lungs with every small breath he takes, and he taps his thumb against the rough paper in discomfort. But he passes over it, classing it as the fact the book was dusty and aged and clearly pre-owned. _This is good_ , he thinks to himself, pulling the tome a little closer to his face as he scanned through the scrawled diagram, _I can take this back to the common room and…_

There’s a wave of that sickness tightening at his lungs again, at his throat, and only then does he begin to realise something’s probably wrong, here.

“Donghyuck?”

He hears his name being called, and jolts around to face an older year in red robes standing a few feet away, who’s face he can’t quite make out through the lack of hovering candlelight around them. They’re wearing a prefect’s badge though, meaning he’s almost definitely in trouble. He tries to open his mouth, to blag his way out of it entirely and come out on the other side unscathed, but the third wave of sickness hits him deeper than it had before, and he finds himself falling.

He doesn’t register hitting the ground, his lights going out the moment before and the book slamming shut on the floor next to him, but at least it doesn’t hurt.

 

*

 

I. JISUNG

When he wakes up, it’s with an ache, in the medical wing. He’s been here a lot, after attempts at quidditch try-outs, the fateful Nakamoto trials, and even after a failed Charms class experiment in which Jaemin fucked up an Epoximise charm resulting in him and Donghyuck being joined at the hands for an entire day.

(Wasn’t a complete and utter nightmare, no matter how much Donghyuck liked to complain about it.)

He doesn’t know why he’s recounting all of this, but it’s nice to think back on his school years regardless. Even though a lot of these involved pain and suffering at his own expense and _ugh,_ his head hurts from thinking too much on this.

He blearily looks around, registering a dull pain in the back of this head noticing first, the prefect slouched in the seat by the foot of his bed, a little bit of drool at the corner of his mouth. He understands now, with the red and gold tie, the guy who found him was Yukhei. A final year who Donghyuck knows well, and he relaxes a little. Even if he does get in trouble in the long run, Yukhei is one of the ones who jokes with him the most. His slides his eyes to the left, taking in who else is by his bed.

His eyes soften slightly when he sees that Jisung is occupying it, fingers curled into his yellow tie loosely as he snoozes too. The blinds across the way are shut, so Donghyuck has no clue what time it is, but he hopes it’s not past curfew. Surely the nurses would’ve shooed the two away if it were.

He lets out a groan as he shuffles up on the bed, feeling a little dazed at the moment, stirring the two of them awake in an instant. Yukhei jerks first when he wakes, standing up and hands hovering in Donghyuck’s general space. That ever kind face of his was marred with worry, and one quick glance at Jisung, he sees he’s mirroring it.

“Donghyuck, are you okay? Can I help at all, do something?” He asks, apprehensively. Donghyuck merely groans, trying to literally shake himself out of it but it feels like his brain is rattling around in his head, so he quickly stops that.

“I feel… like I’m drunk. Which, not to say I go out drinking a lot, because I don’t, and it’s kind of embarrassing how much I don’t know, I guess, but I could never handle my alcohol anyway, so,” he says, or more like spills. The words come, and come down like a waterfall, and don’t seem to stem until he gets it all out in one breath, and a hand covers his mouth in surprise. He hadn’t meant to say it all, not like that.

Yukhei and Jisung exchange a not too sneaky look between them, before Yukhei takes the initiative between them.

“I’m gonna… go and grab the nurse then, alright? Don’t mess around too much,” Yukhei says, reaching over to gently rub the back of Donghyuck’s head carefully, before heading back out of the wing. It’s a little chilly in here, he finds, looking down to find himself still in his uniform. Can’t have been in here for too long, at least.

“Do you remember what happened, Donghyuck?” Jisung asks, low voice uncharacteristically shy as he leans back and drags the chair over closer to the bed.

“I… Merlin, for the life of me I can’t remember. I know I was in the fourth-floor library because, like. I didn’t plan mine and Jen’s Potions assignment and it’s like, cruuucial. And it kind of sucks because it’s my own poor organisation that put me in this mess in the first place, you know?” Donghyuck lolls his head over to look at Jisung properly, then, but he still can’t find a comfortable position, and he winces. “I don’t wanna let him down, he’s too nice to be let down.”

Jisung blinks a little in the way that he does, at the blatant word vomit. Donghyuck, once again, is a little shocked too. He doesn’t broadcast his massive, debilitating crush on Jeno THAT much at the least, nothing that could be perceived more than a joke, but here he is — blabbing his heart out to Jisung. It’s ridiculous.

“What’s the matter with you?” Jisung questions a little carefully, eyebrows scaling up. “Does your head still hurt? You hit it pretty hard, Yukhei said…”

What’s the matter with him? Donghyuck stews on that for a little while, thoughts leaving the annoying thud of pain and revolving around the boy in front of him, who’s looking up at him with a furrowed brow, concern erred into his features.

Jisung is older now, only a little younger than Donghyuck but has grown so much in such a short amount of time. He feels an overwhelming wave of affection for the younger boy, and he peers at him quietly.

“What _is_ the matter with me?” he muses gently, making Jisung blink rapidly again at the weird tender echo to his voice. “Jisung… I’m so overwhelmingly proud of you I don’t really know what to do with myself. I’m sorry if my teasing gets too much. I think it’s because I can’t deal with emotional vulnerability well, so I just end up making fun of things like feelings or whatever, but you’ve done so great, you know? You’re really one of the good ones.”

After that spiel, Donghyuck immediately and forcefully covers his mouth, so much so he kind of smacks himself, and he scrunches his face up in pain. At that point, Yukhei and the head nurse sweep back into a room, and Jisung stands up, with red tipped ears and a wide-eyed expression and points at Donghyuck like _he’s_ the metaphorical elephant in the room.

“Something’s wrong with Donghyuck!”

He’s informed, after that utterly embarrassing display and chasing Jisung out of the room with some choice words (that were immediately negated by his wide-eyed apologies because he loves the kid, doesn’t mean it, not really, this is just a shitty situation and— _fuck_ ) that the discovery of a first edition Libatius Borage tome absolutely doused in poorly made Veritaserum has rendered him with a temporary condition that ultimately means he’s unable to shut his mouth.

Because the elixir wasn’t potent, nor was he exposed to the vapor for very long, it wouldn’t last, but the medical wing nurses look down at him with a mild amount embarrassment because, they tell him, _we’re not exactly sure how long it_ will _last._

Donghyuck slumps back into his bed, the uncomfortable mattress digging into his spine, and screams into his pillow.

 

*

 

II. CHENLE

Over the next two days, the moment he gets out of the hospital wing, he announces an important decree: all of his friends were hereby banned from coming in within a 5 feet radius of him for the foreseeable future, lest they face an overly affectionate and prompt death.

He’s still burning from embarrassment from what he said to Jisung, has a feeling his devastatingly positive feelings in regard to the rest of his friends would easily bubble over like it did to Jisung and he wasn’t ready for that, no way. He was so nervous on what he could possibly say to his best friends that he ultimately just didn’t allow them to talk to him. Can’t show any weakness if he can’t see anyone at all, can he?

He’s officially excused from his classes, having medical slips to cover them, which might just get him out of most of his assignments. He doesn’t go to meals in the hall, nor does he dare show his face anywhere other than their dormitory, but after Donghyuck was caught sneaking out to the kitchens after hours by his house prefect, Chenle had taken to bringing him meals and any work that he ends up missing of his own accord. It was extra work for him, because they weren’t even in the same classes, let alone _year._ He had O.W.Ls to prepare for but everyone, not just Chenle, knew he was too stubborn to ask for help.

Chenle was a special case, merely because he was an eternal wild spirit who simply couldn’t be told what to do, promptly ignoring each and every one of Donghyuck’s warnings but didn’t linger too much in fear of actually making the sixth year even more uncomfortable than he already was.

A few more days pass on after the incident, leading up to their coveted bi-monthly Hogsmeade trip. At this point, Donghyuck is miserable from his self-imposed socialising ban, and even more so at the fact he couldn’t dare show his face at the event because everyone would pounce on him like a bunch of antagonising hyenas. That, and the fact the medical team had strictly banned him from anything strenuous between the daily dorm-visits for check-ups. How loitering around the Three Broomsticks would be anything strenuous was completely beyond him, but he didn’t dare argue for once.

He still felt the gross haze that the Veritaserum vapour had hit him with, hanging around him like a mosquito net that can’t quite do its job but weigh him down, and merely quietly mourned the fact that Jaemin and Renjun had left the dorm first with soft goodbyes through the curtains surrounding his bed whilst he pretended to nap.

It isn’t until a little later after the time the first bus would have taken some of the students out to the town, that Chenle comes to shock Donghyuck out of his now very _real_ nap.

“I’m coming in,” Chenle calls, the volume not really necessary from behind the jade fabric and startling Donghyuck awake from his mope-induced nap. They’d been communicating (or rather, Donghyuck had been tight-lipped smiling and nodding at whatever Chenle said after he did him a favour) pretty sparingly over the past few days, but this was the first time Chenle had actually imposed on him.

He looked sweet, summer uniform missing in lieu of his casual clothes: brands Donghyuck had no clue about sewed into hems of a dark denim jacket and shirt. His frequently charmed hair that seemed to change every month or so was currently a white blonde that fell in front of his eyes, and he looked cute. Frankly, Donghyuck called Chenle cute in some capacity pretty much every waking minute of every day, because he _was,_ so he doesn’t feel too bad when it slips out.

“You look cute today, Chenle,” he murmurs, rubbing a bit of sleep out of his eye and pulling himself up in the bed. “What happened to staying away from me, though?”

Chenle preens at the comment instead of mocking his loose tongue (to which Donghyuck is eternally grateful for), resting on the edge of the bed and propping himself up with his hands on the bed between his thighs.

“Everyone is miserable,” Chenle replies easily, a matter of fact tone in his high voice, “including me. We’re all bored without you.”

Donghyuck feels a little warm at that, can’t help himself when he leans a little forward.

“Really?”

“Duh! We have to deal with Mark trying to be funny whilst also stop us from mourning your lack of presence, and stuff. It’s atrocious, you _gotta_ get better.”

Donghyuck smiles at that, fondly thinking back to how Mark had stormed into the medical wing before everyone else had their one and only visit the same day, the moment his class ended and Yukhei had passed the news onto him dutifully. He was a little out of breath, and later Donghyuck realised it was because he had practically ran from the Astronomy tower, bending over the bed and squishing Donghyuck’s face in his hands to make sure he was okay.

Then, he lectured the Slytherin for the next few minutes, pinching his ear and seemingly faltering when Donghyuck could do nothing but apologise when all he really wanted to do, desperately so, was bicker back and stop being so damn see-through.

“I think Mark likes me better like this,” Donghyuck says quietly, trying desperately not to err on the side of whining. Chenle frowns at him, an unusual expression on his face. “I can’t annoy him as much.”

“Nope, he’s worrying like craaazy! But ‘cos _you’re_ not leaving the Slytherin wing,” Chenle says with a pointed look at Donghyuck, making the other wilt slightly, “he can’t come and see you. Not unless we sneak him in, but you’re not even seeing Jaemin and Renjun, or the best one, me, so of course you wouldn’t see Mark, I guess... You guys are so different, but so similar it’s crazy… maybe being around you would make him a little more honest about his feelings, too.”

“I’m seeing you now, aren’t I?” Donghyuck says with a lip corners curled like a cat, not focusing on the Mark comment, the words winding around his tongue heavily. He can still tease; still fib it seems. Takes a great lot of effort, though.

“Donghyuck…”

Donghyuck sighs at that, looking to where Chenle’s colourful songbird had made itself comfortable, nestled up on top of a rafter of his bed when the younger boy had entered the dorm, he supposed. He felt it coming, rising up like he was about to be sick, but this time he didn’t try and stop it.

“I’m scared, okay?” He huffs out, watching as Chenle’s mouth opens in surprise, and trying not to disappear under the bed covers. “This is… new, to me, I don’t know. This, like, sucks. I don’t want my whole heart out on like, a — a what’s it called, a biopsy table! It’s easier to joke around, than to…”

Donghyuck makes a frustrated noise, instead of finishing his sentence. He misses bothering his friends, more than anything. He misses harassing Mark, he misses bickering with Jaemin, Renjun and Jisung. He misses fawning over Chenle and falling point-blank for Jeno. It’s only been a week, but this whole situation, coupled with the fact all he wanted was his friends’ support, but he was too scared to ask for it... really didn’t gel with him.

Chenle reaches out then, timid like he doesn’t want to spook Donghyuck even further, before feeling surer of himself, to take hold of the older boy’s hand. Donghyuck’s admittedly touch-starved, so he’s grateful, more grateful than he could say — well, that wasn’t explicitly true. He could say it all and more. But that was more than he was ready for.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to, you know, say anything anymore. I just want you to know, your feelings—just. You’re safe with us,” Chenle says quietly, sounding uncharacteristically wise beyond his years. Donghyuck closes his eyes momentarily, feeling a bit of the stress lift from his shoulders at his sweet words. When he opens them, it’s because Chenle tightens his grip a little, not letting Donghyuck’s hand slip from his, and he finds himself smiling. It’s small, but there.

The constriction on his heart tightens, before loosening a bit.

“Okay, enough of the overly cheesy chatter,” Donghyuck says, loud and a little like his old self before this whole truth potion debacle. “Don’t you have a bus to catch?”

“I could stay, if you wanted?”

Chenle’s eyes are wide and earnest, and Donghyuck almost — _almost_ takes him up on his offer. He gets up, tugging Chenle up by their joint hands in a swift movement, even though his legs ache from sudden use. Chenle goes, easy, to hover in front of him and Donghyuck gulps, because when did the younger boy get that smidgen taller than him?

“You need to get a present to send back home to your aunt, remember? Don’t skip out just because of lil ol’ me, kid.”

Chenle huffs at the kid comment, before throwing all caution to the proverbial wind and pulling Donghyuck into a strong-armed cuddle, practically winding the sixth year. He lets out a choke of surprise, closing his arms around him to return it, but mostly just clasping onto the other’s elbows for stability.

Chenle goes quickly after that with his bird swooping down to land in the space between the back of his neck and his jacket collar, but the conversation leaves Donghyuck with a light heart for the rest of the day, despite the bitterness he feels missing the trip and his friends.

Later, when Donghyuck tentatively opens the curtains again despite people bustling around the dorm room at dinner time, there’s a small present bag waiting on the edge of the bedside table, with a pretentious tag charmed to the handle (because Chenle refuses to use simple things like tape, and thread, or visit any stationary shop both within Hogwarts grounds or otherwise.)

He guesses it must be from Chenle, because the note simply says, _From your favourite, C_. Donghyuck smiles at that, despite himself.

It’s medium sized, and he wonders for a moment what exactly it could be, with raised eyebrows, before catching sympathetic eyes looking at him, frozen from changing into more comfortable clothes. Renjun is looking in from the bed across from him and Donghyuck blanches, pulling the bag back into his personal safety bubble and drawing the curtains pointedly closed again. No privacy in this den, he swears.

He hears a little bit of that exasperation that never fully leaves Renjun’s voice, but it’s mostly concern when Renjun says:

“You can’t hide forever, Hyuck.”

“If you aren’t respecting the ban,” Donghyuck says back through the curtain, feeling looser lipped than he has for a while, “then that’s grounds for treason, Huang.”

Renjun lets out a little reel of laughter, before going silent. Donghyuck feels his cheeks heat up in embarrassment and a little bit of regret, before reaching into the bag and pulling out the present from his friend.

It’s a small, leather bound journal. The pages are lined with a nice russet colour, and attached is a pretty pen that looks, to every extent, completely normal. He flicks through a few pages in fond appreciation, before another small note slips down a little from where it resides on the page.

It reads, in scratched handwriting, _perfect if you don’t wanna speak! can just write ~~respn~~ responses, or just practice writing ur feelings out maybe? hope u like it!!!!!!!!!!_

Donghyuck has to bite lightly on his cheek to stop his smile. The stress swimming around within him, he finds, lessens further as he balances the weight of the pen in his hand.

 

*

 

III. JAEMIN

After Donghyuck’s intervention with Chenle, he lets his walls down a little. The next day, he takes down the nay-ending notice charm on both the stone bricks of their dorm entrance _and_ his bed post to tell people to leave him alone, essentially shutting people out from contacting him before they can even try so he can avoid conversation that will result in more of his own embarrassment.

He realises he’s being petty — precautious sure, but petty. However, it all came down to the fact that no matter how much he didn’t want to admit it, Renjun was right. Maybe he can’t hide forever. It’s not feasible, not with his workload this semester. He finds, though, after his confessions to Chenle and Jisung, that the haze clouding his mind seems to be a lot less prominent than it was before. For that, he definitely and furtively thanks whatever patron saints of potion potency that are listening in.

He’s lying spread-eagled on his unmade bedspread instead of heading down to his first public outing of lunch, when Jaemin decides it’s time to strike.

“Ringing in for a Mr. Donghyuck Lee…” he calls, the grin palpable in his voice, and Donghyuck freezes.

 _Merlin_ , _no,_ he thinks with a strong feeling dread creeping up on him. He thought he had more time. He thought he was _safe_ for now.

When Jaemin slides his bed curtains open with one deft movement, Donghyuck practically exhales all of the air in his body in lieu of a pre-exhausted sigh, accepting his oncoming doom.

He’s standing there, hands on his hips, looking at him with the most shit-eating grin, but Donghyuck can’t deny it’s good to see him. He’s missed that idiot.

Said idiot is halfway out of his uniform sweater, the green and silver crest on his chest crumpled, but he still manages to look annoyingly stunning. He bets with all of his constant napping and eating meals at bizarre times to avoid the student body whenever Chenle can’t utilise his personal delivery service, that Donghyuck just looks swollen.

“You’re a pest,” Donghyuck chooses to say, narrowing his eyes, and that’s technically not a lie, so he preens to himself when Jaemin lets out a huff.

“Why can’t you be nice to me like you’ve been nice to the others?”

“You’ve got a special place in my heart, Na.”

 _Oh,_ that cuts a little deep.

Jaemin’s lip corners curl at that, and Donghyuck knows he almost definitely said the wrong thing. He pulls himself out of his jumper fully, leaving him in the basic button up shirt, before sidling up to the mattress and collapsing painfully on Donghyuck.

The older between them lets out an _oof_ at the impact. He’s half on, half off Donghyuck’s body, probably trying to pretend this is a cuddle and not a unique wrestling move.

“I’m sick, you know, you need to treat your elders with _care,”_ Donghyuck whines, smacking at Jaemin’s waist and flags when the other does nothing so much as stir.

“Oh? The staggering two months between us are so devastating, huh?” Jaemin snarks back, grinning down and moving his hands from where they rest fisted in the sheets next to Donghyuck’s neck, and instead squishes Donghyuck’s face erring on uncomfortably. “How’s our poor baby boy?”

“Two months, Jaem,” he urges — more pout-speaks through pressed cheeks, though something in his chest stirs at that, their proximity. Something that, albeit, hasn’t been thought about since his fourth year, but still. A thing. The pink elephant in the room.

Jaemin laughs at that, a laughter like a bell twinkling, before letting Donghyuck live. He pushes himself up and out of Donghyuck’s face, which is the answer to his prayers because he thinks desperately that Jaemin will let him mope in peace, but then Jaemin promptly flops back down to rest his chin on Donghyuck’s solar plexus.

He wheezes again when Jaemin lands against him and wonders briefly if he can go back to living out his wonderful life as a hermit.

Jaemin’s hands wind to wedge themselves under the other boy’s waist and back, pinching lightly but insistently until Donghyuck arches in discomfort and Jaemin can wrap his arms fully around him.

“How’ve you been holding up, then?” He urges again, like he isn’t the tornado that’s swept into Donghyuck’s metaphorical and literal life and harassed him into submission.

“Miserable,” Donghyuck finds himself saying, truthfully. “Missed you guys.”

He says the second half of his words a little smushed into the covers as he speaks to the side, trying to avoid Jaemin’s annoyingly wide eyes. Everything about him was _annoying_.

“We missed you too, idiot,” Jaemin replies good-naturedly, pinching Donghyuck’s side again, like the first few times the older boy had writhed at it hadn’t disturbed him off of doing it in the slightest. “Can’t believe you thought you could hide away and not let us help you.”

“Yeah, well, Chenle told me you’ve all been absolutely distraught without my presence, so who’s the real winner here?”

He says that with a forced laugh, but Jaemin’s slightly sobered expression is his downfall.

“What can we say,” he muses, thumb sweeping through the thin material of Donghyuck’s casual shirt that he always wears under his uniform button up, across his rib cage, “we’re co-dependant.”

It was a joke, but even Donghyuck could pick up the subtext, the undercurrent of how true that really was. Despite the fact their friendship group was spread over three houses, three years, they really did stick together from the start. Mark, Chenle and Jisung really did nothing but solidify their group by their presence alone.

When Renjun had gotten taken out on purpose during a Quidditch match of the season by a bitter Ravenclaw, they’d all fought avidly for his suspension whilst an equally as angry Renjun nursed a fractured forearm in the medical wing.

When Jisung needed help with his Defense Against the Dark Arts class curriculum, they all took time off in the evenings to practice spells in the grounds behind the herbology sheds, even when Jisung almost definitely set Donghyuck’s trouser leg’s on fire twice by accident.

Even now, with Donghyuck dealing with — with his weird _thing,_ they were giving him space, but still trying to tend to him.

They were fiercely co-dependent, maybe to a fault. But that didn’t matter, not when they loved each other like this.

“No kidding,” Donghyuck laughs back, the rise of his lungs disturbing Jaemin’s position.

They lapse into a comfortable silence, Jaemin slowly stroking that same spot shy of Donghyuck’s flank and not pressing him, thank whatever cultivated heavenly spirit resides above their castle, their plane of existence, because he doesn’t feel like he hasn’t to spill out whole emotional monologues. He just drinks into the silence and finds himself relaxing in someone else’s presence.

He doesn’t know how long they lie there quietly to the sounds of the lake lapping against the walls of the dorm, of their breathing. Jaemin’s head is turned to nose into Donghyuck’s shirt instead of digging into his chest with his chin. He even considers fobbing off lunch to just nap again, but at that point, Donghyuck’s stomach rumbles.

Jaemin laughs loudly, disturbing the mood and Donghyuck splutters, explaining that he was _building up the courage to go to lunch, okay, it’s justified that I’m a little hungry because you came in and_ accosted _me._ Jaemin chuckles again, the lower register of his voice sounding good to his ears. That’s what he’ll say, that he’s lulled into a false sense of security by the sound of Jaemin’s laugh, when he says, “I really did miss you.”

“And I missed you too, but you realise we’ve only been apart for like, a week,” Jaemin says easily, into his sternum. “Aren’t you too obsessed with me?”

He feels the smile, and Donghyuck huffs, dragging his hand over the slope of Jaemin’s back and pinching him above a shoulder blade.

“I mean like, in general, loser,” Donghyuck gulps as he replies, when all Jaemin does is grumble at the revenge. “You’re one of my best friends, right? I don’t know, I just don’t want to lose you, I guess. I just wanted you to know, I don’t know.”

A lot of these ground-breaking, emotional rollercoaster confessions of Donghyuck are filled with him being unsure, being a little shy as he bares his heart, but he’s learned to roll with it now.

“Who said you ever got a choice in the matter?” Jaemin guffaws, teeth a little sharp in his grin as he looks up at Donghyuck. His dark hair suits him well, he hadn’t got the chance to say since they met back up for semester resumption.

He thinks about first year Jaemin, somehow short but gangly at the same time, metallic braces but a brilliant smile who had almost toppled their boat during the first trip to the castle. He thinks about fourth year Jaemin, the massive crush Donghyuck harboured on the guy who was almost too pretty to look at, the nights out at the lake with everyone but all Donghyuck could look at was him. He thinks about the Jaemin now, the Jaemin who twists and teases, but if Donghyuck knows one thing, it’s that he’s never met a person quite like him.

“Merlin,” Jaemin continues, “this potion isn’t all that bad, huh? I’m blushing over here.”

“Shut up,” Donghyuck says, feeling his skin heat up. “Die.”

“You loooove me,” Jaemin teases at that, squeezes him tighter. “Can’t live withouuuut me.”

“I do, and I can’t,” he replies, narrow-eyed, “but I hate it, and would love to return you with receipt by owl post as soon as possible.”

But Jaemin is smiling, so brilliantly that Donghyuck relaxes a little more, until his stomach rumbles again and they both laugh obnoxiously loudly together.

“Come on then,” Jaemin says, withdrawing his hands finally and letting Donghyuck breathe properly. He needed that, though. They both did, probably. He kneels up on the bed, resting back on his haunches. The ends of his hair are still a little wet from his shower before Jaemin came in and disturbed the peace, so he lightly reaches out blindly for his wand on his bedside table.

Jaemin takes it from him, gently prying it out of his fingers, before casting a light warming charm. It’s the barest of bones, because Donghyuck’s wand of dragonscale and vine has always been temperamental, but it does the job. He holds out a hand as he steps off of the bed with one foot, and Donghyuck takes it, finally allowing himself the luxury to be pulled up and leave the sanctity of his dormitory.

“Finish getting changed, and let’s go eat.”

By the time they head up to the ground level floor, direct to the Grand Hall, his confidence doesn’t even falter. The doors are open, since it’s the tail-end of lunch time still, meaning there is still a good chunk of students filtering throughout the tables; a number of teachers heading up the other end of the hall.

There’s not a moment, a dramatic scene like in every muggle coming-of-age movie that Mark has sat him down to watch in the common room or huddled around a smuggled-in screen in a red or green dormitory, where everyone stalls and looks at him like he’s under microscopic lens. There’s not any of that, sure, but a good chunk of the older years that know him spot the entrance of the two Slytherins and he finds himself faltering momentarily at their surprised gazes.

His eyes scan over the people that look back at them, at him. He sees Yukhei stand up, kind relieved worry on his face, but it looks like Mark stops him with that cheesy, apologetic expression he gets on his face from time to time and a hand on his arm, choosing to get up himself. He looks over to Jeno and Jisung, like he’s planning on sending a meaningful look over to them to bring them over, but when Donghyuck follows his line of gaze, Jeno is already standing.

He’s delicately folding over the paper of the baked goods he bought at that one bakery he loves in Hogsmeade, Donghyuck assumes. He’s standing already, and once its wrapped enough so no crumbs will spill out, he promptly heads toward the Slytherin table. Donghyuck’s heart, no matter how bare minimum the action was, squeezes at that.

With a prompting at the small of Donghyuck’s back from Jaemin, they head over to the table too. He can’t quite make out where Renjun and Chenle are sitting, until Chenle’s bright hair pops up from behind someone else. They brighten significantly when they recognise who Jaemin’s escorting, shuffling to create space for them to sit down. Jisung reaches them first, having left the Hufflepuff table before Jeno, and awkwardly hovers until Chenle tugs him down to the other side of him.

People end up moving of their own volition to accommodate them, and their non-house associates, murmuring how _it’s nice to see you back, Donghyuck_ , and _missed hearing you around the corridors, dude,_ and they all slide into the bench together.

“You been alright then, Hyuck?” Renjun asks first, as they all settle, and both Jisung and Chenle quietly bicker as they work on getting a plate together for Donghyuck without him even asking.

“I’ve been better,” he jokes back, feeling a burst of relief at how easier his words came. Jaemin smiles to himself as he takes a sip of water. “Heard you missed me something fierce?”

“Don’t know where you heard that,” Renjun scoffs when Donghyuck waggles his eyebrows, wry smile on his lips matching the other boy’s as they survey each other. “Total lie.”

At that time in the conversation, Jeno and Mark make it, quietly sliding into gaps that were free between them. Mark takes a spot beside him and jostles his shoulder, the other boy sitting opposite, both smiling tentatively at Donghyuck.

They’ve all somehow circled him in, cutting him off from any additional prying eyes. He feels a little shy, still, but masks it by stretching out dramatically with his arms above his head before tucking into his delivered plate. Jaemin launches into a weird story about his morning Herbology class, taking the attention away from Donghyuck to which he was infinitely grateful for.

After a bit, he looks up. He doesn’t expect it, should, probably, but he’s surprised when he catches Jeno’s gaze. He’s looking at him carefully instead of eating, elbow resting on the table and side of his head propped up but his hand. His dark fringe curls into the thin rim of his glasses from where his hand is disturbing it, and Donghyuck’s heart just beats a little faster.

It’s so embarrassing, he wants to die right there for even feeling like this, but it’s—fine. When Donghyuck looks back, a slow smile spreads across Jeno’s face, and it unfurls the knot in his chest borne the moment he stepped into the Grand Hall.

He finds himself grinning a little shyly back, unable to keep their eye contact and hold it, the tips of his ears most certainly burning red. Jeno joins in with the conversation then, disproving whatever Jaemin is saying and grinning at the younger boy’s splutters of conviction; but whilst he chatters, he slowly pushes over the baked goods he painstakingly wrapped up between them over to Donghyuck’s side of the table.

Donghyuck reaches out, looking up in confusion, but Jeno won’t look back at him anymore.

There’s a mild flush climbing up his neck, if Donghyuck isn’t seeing things (and he prays he’s not), kind of making him gulp when he unwraps the lavender packaging to reveal dark chocolate cookies. They were Jeno, along with his surprising sweet tooth’s, favourite treat from whenever they managed to go to Hogsmeade. He doesn’t hesitate, popping one into his mouth and almost purring at how nice it tasted. From across the table, Jeno hides a laugh behind his hand, blatantly pleased that Donghyuck liked it.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

 

*

 

IV. RENJUN

Now, although he desperately wanted to back out, he was — officially — out of hiding now. With Renjun’s, and the Slytherin team’s first Quidditch match of the resuming semester against Hufflepuff upon them, he realised he had to go because it was something that he promised to attend the first day they had returned and he intended to follow through on it.

It’s not exactly off-season for Quidditch, but there won’t be any official matches for inter-house tournaments or otherwise for a month still, so seeing Renjun where he flourished was something he wanted.

Donghyuck promised, and so he finds himself sandwiched between Jaemin and Chenle in the stands, the windy weather whipping around their hair and clothes, and munching away at a three-way share bag of popcorn resting on Donghyuck’s thigh.

Because it’s one of the first matches of the semester, and they all arrived late, they couldn’t sit together because the stands were filled, naturally. They decide to sit in their house sections near the pitch, promising to meet up with Renjun later on the castle grounds once he was changed out of his gear.

It’s fine, sitting here with the two of them, because they know not to bother him, but every so often people that he knows will lean over and tease the fuck out of him. Which, ultimately, is fine. He’s a big boy. The potion’s effects are wearing off every day, he fines, so he snaps back, is cocky enough to bounce off their attempts to bother him especially when Jaemin leans out of his seat to give them a snarky piece of his mind, or when Chenle directs one-liners with wide, unassuming eyes.

He feels sensitive, from the moment that the time for the match to begin creeps up. The breeze is flicking his collar into his neck, his fringe into his eye. The moment that a couple other house students Donghyuck doesn’t know trickle past them up the stairs and mutter, _that’s the Lee who got dosed the other day,_ he clutches the bag in tight frustration and opens his mouth to snap at them.

He doesn’t get to snipe them with his words however, isn’t prepared for when Renjun breaks rank in the middle of warm-ups with the rest of the Slytherin team to pull up on his broom and hover over their seat. There’s a pinched expression on his face, the green uniform flickering in the wind quite valiantly as he calls out:

“Hey, you two — watch your mouth, unless you want your face rearranged.”

His voice isn’t shaking with fury, he’s somehow not coming across as incredibly aggressive, but rather like his annoyance has reached its peak and he’s sick of it. He didn’t even seen Renjun looking over, noticing what was going on. Ultimately harmless teasing, but Donghyuck still feels that burn of gratitude through him.

Donghyuck blinks rapidly, looking up in shock, but Renjun isn’t looking at him. He’s scared off the two he was initially talking to, but his eyes sweep the crowd. “The same doesn’t go for you guys but lay off. Learn to treat your friends with like, _some_ form of respect.”

“Renjun!” Donghyuck hisses out, frantically going between the motions of waving him down and shooting him away. Chenle and Jaemin are no help, snickering behind their hands at Renjun’s protective streak. He was like a guard dog. Or, like a Yorkie at least. “It’s whatever, you know, don’t worry about it.”

Renjun frowns at that, leaning back and crossing his arms in a show of perfect balance. Donghyuck was a little jealous.

“What, you want them bothering you? You’re into that? You know you don’t have to take it, right?”

“No, just — you know. It’s okay,” he groans, scratching the back of his neck and looking away. It was nice to hear those sorts of things, Donghyuck realised, though, and feels the back of his neck heat up. “I’m okay, now. Thank you for worrying, so go, get ready for your game.”

“Oh yeah,” Renjun exclaims like it only just occurred to him, re-handling the broom again and changing his form. “Wish me luck, then!”

Renjun shoots off like nothing happens, leaving Donghyuck a little _more_ speechless as he disappears across the pitch. Nobody bothers him for the rest of the time, a little embarrassed from being chewed out like that, but Donghyuck can’t help but grin a little for the rest of the time.

The match seems to rush by, no one seeming to hover still for even a moment. Renjun secured his position on the team by being one of the consistently best Chasers that Slytherin had to offer. They were using a common tactic Donghyuck had seen a lot: brute force wins all. It meant all that he actually focused on was pure quaffle assault of the goals; Yerim and Siyeon defending him from stray bludgers and insistent, opposing Beaters. This seemed to be the constant Slytherin strategy, but if it ain’t broke.

Renjun also took to sweeping the arena a lot more, eyes darting to where Donghyuck was sitting each time, before he would start up his next onslaught.

The match doesn’t last overly long, with the snitch being caught by the Slytherin seeker and erupting a roar around the arena in the sea of green. Donghyuck finds himself on his feet, his two friends joining him in that regard a beat later, cheering his heart out.

Donghyuck goes on ahead on the long walk back to the Slytherin Quidditch cloakrooms before the others, propelled by a sudden need to actually talk to Renjun, but not really sure what to say. He waits for him at the entrance, perched on the bench by the stone path that led him there, twiddling his thumbs a little as his teammates leave first.

Renjun leaves last out of his team, finally, still fiddling with his tie knot and blinks rapidly a little when he sees Donghyuck waiting for him on his own.

“Hey, there,” Donghyuck greets, with an awkward wave. “Good game.”

“Thanks, man. I did say I’d meet you guys on the way to main grounds though, right?” Renjun asks, a little confused but coming to sit next to him anyway. “I didn’t hit my head, right?”

“No, you’re good. Unless someone smacked you round the head behind one of the pillars. In that case, we sue?”

“Ugh, you’d sue for me,” Renjun swoons dramatically, falling into Donghyuck’s shoulder with a hand over his brow. It sends Donghyuck into a cascade of laughter, steadying his friend with a hand splayed on his shoulder and pulling him close.

When Donghyuck’s hand slips off of Renjun, he braces himself up on the back of the bench they’re on, casting a look at a thinking Donghyuck as the sun goes down behind him.

“Is it my turn for a Donghyuck-brand love confession, then?”

Donghyuck smacks his stomach lightly but, Renjun lets out a whinge of pain at the impact regardless.

“Shut up,” he huffs, refusing to look at him, instead looking at a rose bush in front of them, “I’m trying this new thing called being transparent.”

“Shutting up now,” Renjun laughs, rubbing his stomach with one hand and holding the other up in surrender.

“Thanks… for earlier,” Donghyuck says, trying not to sober up too much but slipping into it a little. “Seriously, I think I’d fight the world for you, dude. I think it helps that you’d do the same for me, I guess.”

“I just don’t think you deserve to be treated like a joke when you’ve clearly been bothered by this whole nonsense,” Renjun replies a little seriously, leaning out a little to capture Donghyuck’s avoidant gaze. “Sorry if I made you feel inferior, you know. I don’t ever want to make you feel like you can’t look out for yourself, I guess.”

Donghyuck gulps at that, eyes dropping down to his feet. He ends up catching Renjun’s swinging leg, linking their ankles together before finally meeting Renjun’s eyes again.

“And I appreciate it, I really do. I just think I’m so used to you guys that I don’t really bother thinking about anything else, I guess,” Donghyuck muses, swinging their legs together slowly. The sun is setting, making for a pretty picture as they quietly converse.

“Makes sense,” Renjun says with a wistful smile, chewing on the inside of his cheek briefly, validating him.

“You’re seriously a good friend, Renjun. Thank you, for being able to call me out on my shit and also be a really fucking good guy.”

Renjun grins at that, slow-spreading and toothy. He reaches over, linking their arms and pulling him close.

“Always, loser.”

They stay like that for a while, despite the fact they both have plans to meet with their friends by now. It’s a nice feeling, Donghyuck can’t deny that. That is, until Renjun opens up his big mouth.

“So, have you spoken to Jeno, yet?”

“You — you shut your mouth, Huang.”

 

*

 

V. MARK

After how well his track record was going, Donghyuck finds himself purposely seeking out a certain Gryffindor the next day. Since he knew his timetable like the back of his hand (more than he knew his _own_ one, really _)_ he realised that at that moment in time, as he passes other Gryffindors heading back to the castle, Mark is probably in the middle of clearing up his station after a practical lesson of Herbology. He confidently finds himself headed down the stone path to the additional sheds outside of the castle.

The transparent glass that was clouded a little with moss and grime borne only from gardening stood out against the green, and considering Donghyuck gave up Herbology the beginning of this year, he didn’t go here often, but the past year he’s spent of traveling down two steps at a time from the west entrance of the castle to pick up Mark for lunch made the trip pretty familiar to him.

He considers pressing his face up against the glass to scare Mark shitless, but a betraying voice in his head tells him that if the older boy died of a heart attack, he’d be very, very sad. Also, he’d have to spend at least an entire school semester in the medical wing if he inhaled a super old bug, or a bizarre kind of Potions ingredient. He wasn’t ready for that sort of commitment, so his Plan B was good enough.

He raps on the glass to the entrance and pulls an annoying face, ultimately shocking his friend a little anyways.

“Mark Lee, the man, the myth, the Herbologist,” Donghyuck greets, in a loud tone. He ambles in, pulling up a stool and sitting across the Gryffindor. He’s not in the usual colourless cape to protect him from mess and instead just has his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, since he’s wrist-deep in the dark ceramic pot in front of him, soil spilling over the edge slightly as he compresses a snoozing sapling into the dirt.

“Donghyuck, you’re here?” Mark exclaims at that, startling slightly and stopping his ministrations. You’d think, rather than Herbology, he was essentially just gardening. That’s what it looked like, anyway. Donghyuck says just as such, teasing, relishing when Mark makes a scandalised face, jerks a little.

At that point, the sapling curls around his wrist, tightening slightly.

“Now look what you’ve done,” he grumbles, making a fuss. “Look what you’ve caused.”

“Um, are you gonna lose a hand?” Donghyuck jokes with like, a _sliver_ of panic. Not like he’s totally worried, or anything. “Am I gonna be responsible for the destruction of Mark Lee’s Quidditch career?”

“Nah, you’re good,” he cheeses, wincing regardless at the pinching of the plant. “The reason _why_ this is classed as Herbology, is that Slumbersprigs are pretty dangerous, I guess? Kinda like constricting snakes. You have to distract them, because the only way you can handle them is when they’re sleeping. Like, hmm. Like…”

And then, Mark bursts out into quiet song, because of _course_ he does.

‘Bursts’ isn’t the right word though, not really. It’s shy, sort of like the first time he played guitar in the quad in second year, in front of other, new people and not just in the privacy of his dorm room, or in front of the demanding audience that was a young Donghyuck. Kind of pulls at Donghyuck’s heartstrings a little, because the way he was cradling his pot, canary singing to something that was hurting him, really was so exemplary of his character.

It’s something soft, a lullaby that Donghyuck’s never heard before but managers to sound familiar to his ears anyway. With Donghyuck being a pureblood wizard, and Mark a half-blood who spent a lot more of his life amongst muggle friends and family all across the world, their childhoods couldn’t be more different. Something as little as that being so difficult and similar was wild to him.

Honestly, they spent a lot of Donghyuck’s first year bickering between each other, bashing heads more times than not, but sometime over the course of that year, their friendship became less about the needless competition between them, and more about how they were pretty much two sides of the same damn coin.

Once they finally clicked like a weird kind of puzzle piece, Mark regaled him more often than not with stories of muggle life that wasn’t just showing him all of his favourite shows, sports stars and musicians, when he found himself not minding indulging in Donghyuck’s active questions, about Vancouver, about America.

Donghyuck thinks, even four years on, he wouldn’t really mind travelling around after graduation.

Slowly, the green tendrils around Mark’s arm recede inch by inch, as he lulls the plant back into a dormant state with his voice. It’s a little raspy, probably because he didn’t warm up, but Donghyuck just watches in a little bit of quiet awe until Mark goes back to pressing the soil into the root of the plant.

“You’re still so good,” Donghyuck murmurs.

Mark ducks his head at that, shy.

“So, what’s up?” He asks, trying to move on quickly.

The way he asks makes Donghyuck laugh, and he does. The corner of Mark’s lips up quirk at that, but he waits, not wanting to interrupt.

“Okay, okay,” Donghyuck says, grinning at the other boy as he slowly extricates his hand and heads over to the sink behind him to wash the dirt off of his hands. “You still listening?”

There’s a snort, before he replies.

“Yeah, I’m still listening,” he calls over his shoulder.

“Well, please let me speak before you burst in or whatever. You can keep washing your hands if you desperately want, doesn’t really affect me either way but — I guess it’s easier if I don’t have to stare deeply into your eyes.”

Mark laughs at that, shoulders hunched from where he bends into the deep washbasin. There’s spells they both know that could wash this off and clear up his workstation, but both Mark _and_ the current Herbology professor were essentially the same in that they liked the feeling of hard work at his fingertips, the feel of the dirt washing away with more effort put into it.

“Kinda worried, but go on.”

“Right, I can get this out in one whole chunk, I think. This has been like, weighing down on me for a while. At least, I think it has. Even since this whole stupid potion thing, I’ve been thinking a lot more than I’d actually like to, and it’s given me a lot of headaches but it’s like, solidified a lot of relationships. And ours is something I wanna secure too, you know?”

Mark is quiet, letting Donghyuck collect himself, for which he’s infinitely grateful for. “Like our friendship is so important, dude. I don’t know where I’d be without you. I really, really rely on you and I’m sorry if I seem ungrateful, or whatever. I know I can be annoying.”

Mark turns around slowly then, wringing his hands in the cloth provided with his back resting on the hard of the washbasin behind him for support.

“Thank you for being there for me a lot over the years. I just — I just wanted to let you know, you know? That I respect you. Like, a lot. Ugh, this is gross.”

Mark snorts out at that, making Donghyuck flush in embarrassment. He stifles it with the back of his hand, shuffling the weight from one foot to the other in order to not topple himself over from his giggles. Donghyuck tries not to pout, but whenever he finds himself awkward or shy, it just sort of comes out, especially as he replies, “I’m being serious, here!”

“I’m sorry, Hyuck, I am,” Mark says, hand over his heart that obscures the prefect badge, the Gryffindor crest stitched into his sweater vest. “If I’m honest, I feel the same way? Like, everyone else is my best friend but you and me, seriously…”

He trails off, but Donghyuck gets it. He’s never met someone like Mark, after all.

“I just,” Mark starts, twisting his mouth a little. He looks like he’s stewing on his words. “I hope I’ve never made you shy to admit how you feel to me, I guess. Because you’re just this amazingly bright character, and I never want to make you feel uncomfortable to burn your brightest, or whatever.”

Donghyuck almost refrains from teasing. Almost.

“I’m a phoenix, baby, it’s what I do,” he grins, leaning forward and not even caring when some of the spilled soil from Mark’s potting escapades gets on his jumper sleeves when he braces his forearms on the table. That was technically a good metaphor for what he actually was dealing with. Burning up this last bit of insecurity so he can be theoretically reborn into someone with like, incredible emotional vulnerability.

“Yeah, something like that,” Mark says, smiling softly at him. “Hey, you wanna go grab dinner?”

“If I must,” Donghyuck sighs extravagantly, sliding off of the stool and brushing down his thighs. “God, if you get any of that disgusting grape flavoured chocolate today though, I genuinely might smack it out of your hand.”

He smacks a hand over his mouth as they wander to the doorway, Donghyuck turning wide-eyed to look at a curled over, clutched-at-his-stomach Mark next to him. He garbles out a _sorry, the Veritaserum isn’t quite…,_ as an unfinished excuse, even as Mark keeps laughing.

“Ah, my _god_ , please don’t ever change, Donghyuck.”

 

*

 

VI. JENO

So, here were the facts: Donghyuck Lee fancied the ever-living hell out of Jeno Lee.

Even if it didn’t work out the way that he desperately wanted it to, it didn’t really matter, not in the grand scheme of things. He’d talked to them all, by that time. So, if he was going to continue this truthful streak, might as well go the extra mile. At this point, he was on the last remaining vestiges of the Veritaserum dose: his check-ups at the medical wing had been reduced, and the results were coming out clearer and clearer each time, something he bragged about in any capacity whenever he was with his friends.

He didn’t feel like he had to tell the world exactly what he was thinking, feeling in his heart of hearts.

Of course, it didn’t matter when they all now knew that he would die for them in a heartbeat, but it was fine.

He concocts a plan to go about this all by himself in one of the study wings on the other side of the castle, ignoring pointedly a loitering Renjun who both a. wanted to help Donghyuck out with his debilitating crush problems like some sort of butchered agony aunt and b. desperately wanted to avoid his Muggle Studies essay that was due in downwards of four hours. He promptly threatened the other boy by demise of hex if Renjun bothered him even just once more, turned him around and pushed him toward in the Modern Muggle History section.

When Renjun finally went to another side of the room to start on his paper and left him alone, Donghyuck retrieved the journal that Chenle had gifted to him. He’d been using it a lot, not quite like a diary, but rather like a place to jot down any feelings that felt like they were pressing against his ribcage or even ones he thought like he was on the brink of saying but desperately did not want to.

There were a lot of scribbles, and in between that, a lot of precious information, and even though it was muggle-made, he ended up charming it to continuously shut upon anyone looking at the paper that wasn’t him.

Didn’t stop him from pretentiously titling his plans, though.

 

 _OPTIONS TO CONFESS TO JENO LEE_. (IF U ARE NOT DONGHYUCK LEE, STOP READING!!!)

(THIS MEANS U RENJUN HUANG!!!!!!! U CAN’T READ IT ANYWAY BUT EVEN SO…… GET OUT!!!)

 

1\. go talk to him before his class. then he has to make a quick decision and you can quickly receive ur ~~designated broken hea~~

 

(No, that wasn’t it.)

 

2\. maybe make him go through this whole hullabaloo (sp??) so he can be truthful and you can ~~get broken hearted in peace LOL~~

 

(Not that, either.)

 

3\. ????????????????? ok i have nothing NICE

 

He ends up trailing out of the study hall with a sense of resolve that has nowhere to go despite his utter failure, no healthy output. He ruffles his hair a little harriedly as he heads down the revolving and interchanging steps, mindlessly going on, before halting on the last step as inspiration strikes him like a lightning bolt.

Well. Nothing quite that dramatic, but he ends up riding the staircase until it takes him to the sixth floor, instead of wherever he was going before.

He fiddles with his sleeve of the uniform jumper, a loose thread that he’s worried away even more with his fingertips, until he reaches room 6A: Ancient Studies.

He had _always_ found it cute that Jeno was moreover into the discovery of what makes thinks tick; into historical information and the composition of things.

Whenever Jeno got started on something that interested him, with one knee drawn up on the couch by the fire and somehow fitting into the surroundings in the middle of the Slytherin common room with ease, fire flickering in the reflection of his glasses, something in Donghyuck’s heart genuinely clenched.

It was disgusting.

He waits outside the class, a little earlier than when Jeno would be ready, considering he was squandering his study period in favour of confessing to one of his best friends.

By the time Jeno comes out, books crushed to his chest despite the bag around his body being as he talks to someone Donghyuck has only seen once or twice, a Hufflepuff in the year above, he’s on the edge with nerves. Jeno’s in his grey sweater today, constantly with his glasses on, looking so warm as he laughs at whatever they’re saying that Donghyuck almost forgets to make himself known.

He doesn’t have to anyway, because Jeno finds him first.

“Donghyuck, hey,” Jeno says, eyes widening behind the frames on his face as he comes to a halt. He doesn’t sound unpleasant, thank Merlin, but just a little surprised to see him somewhere he wouldn’t need to come at all. He turns to his friend who slowly continues on, waving him off. “I’ll see you later, dude.”

“Hey there, Moony,” Donghyuck says, a little dumbly as he just stares on at Jeno.

“Did you, uh, maybe wanna talk to me?” Jeno asks, sounding — dare Donghyuck say it, and he _will,_ damn it — a little shy.

He balances his books between the crook of one arm and his chest and using the now free hand to scratch at his cheek, his nervous habit. Donghyuck watches as he drags his nail lightly against skin just shy of his eye mole and tries not to wince with how much he likes him for him to even notice something that small.

He gulps.

“Yeah, I, um — yes, please, if you’re free.”

Really, Donghyuck isn’t free, has something like fifteen minutes until he has to kick his ass in gear to get over to his Care of Magical Creatures class on the other side of the grounds, but really all that matters at that point in time was just, biting the bullet. Telling Jeno he liked him. He could do this.

“What’s up?”

Donghyuck breathes in, finding himself fiddling with his sleeve by his side again. He feels avoidant, all of a sudden. Like before the whole truth serum nonsense, like when he evaded anything that got him in a little too deep. Because he found it was easier that way, to not face his problems head on.

He must not say anything for a beat or two, because Jeno steps a little closer then, head cocked in the way that makes his hair shift to the side absolutely adorably.

“Hyuck? You okay?”

His voice is quiet, as if Donghyuck were a startled deer, and his imploring eyes looking even sweeter in the sun-setting light.

“Can we… go somewhere, maybe?”

“Where would you like to go?” Jeno asks, a gentle twist to his voice and his mouth that makes Donghyuck’s heart ache. _Ever persevering, our Jeno_ , Donghyuck thinks wistfully.

That’s how they end up in the clock tower courtyard, on one of the benches between the four stone eagles — that, honestly didn’t bear great feelings towards Slytherin students as a whole, with the snakes sticking out of their mouths. Maybe that didn’t deem his future full of luck, but at this point, Donghyuck just needed to get it over with.

He finds himself looking into the miniature water feature beside them, covered in lily pads and green scale, and doing his utmost to not look at Jeno whilst he does this.

It’s only then he realises, he’s not being avoidant, not on purpose. He’s just freaking nervous.

“So, what’s up?”

Jeno is so overwhelmingly patient. Saints, he wants to kiss him. Or have Jeno just push him in the water. The waters shallow, but maybe the shame of rejection will make the possibility of drowning a reality.

“Jen, I just… have something to say, and you can answer, and we can just get like, a drink or a meal or something. Because actually, now that I think about it, I’m freaking thirsty all of a sudden. Do you get that? Maybe I can get something from the kitchens before class. Oh, shit, I completely forgot about my class. Maybe we should do this another day? That would probably be, um, best? I guess—”

Donghyuck manages to say that in a total of two breaths, a shocking feat for someone with the lung capacity of a small child. Despite that, he was heralded a fantastic singer for three years in a row when he still went to the school choir events. (A biological miracle.)

Jeno shifts, then. His bag is by his feet, books balanced so carefully so they won’t topple over, leaving nothing but space between them — nothing to impede them. He places a careful hand on the brick beneath them, kind of wincing squeamishly at the cement dust crumbling beneath it, before leaning a little closer.

Donghyuck doesn’t realise it until Jeno is reaching over with his other hand, all tentative and slow, and pulling the Slytherin boy’s hand into his lap. Donghyuck all but hyperventilates, breath picking up at the slight of touch, eyes nervously darting up to meet Jeno’s.

He’s not impassive, per se, but he looks zeroed in, locked on Donghyuck. That in turn makes him a little nervous, but it’s not like he can go anywhere now. No, not with Jeno holding (?!) his (?!) hand (?!?!) like that.

“Take it slow,” Jeno murmurs.

 _Well,_ he thinks, breathing in deep, _here goes nothing. Merlin, forgive me for what I’m about to do, or don’t. I’m sure whatever you deem is best._ The courtyard is empty, so it saves the embarrassment for when Jeno politely rejects him and somehow makes him feel better about not returning those feelings. He’s like that. A good egg.

“Jeno, I like you so much I feel like I can’t breathe,” Donghyuck finally says, throwing the proverbial caution, and his words, to the wind. “Like, right now. I feel like I can’t breathe. It’s ridiculous, because how can someone make me feel like that? But then I realise, oh. It’s you. Of course, it’s because of you.”

Jeno, who held his hand when Donghyuck failed the Boggart test of courage, who wiped the frustrated tears running down his face that were mixed with genuine fear.

Jeno, who carefully and painstakingly treated his cuts and bruises after the Nakamoto trials, even though Donghyuck had been so annoying about the stinging of the wound closing potion and bandage.

Jeno, who knew him better than he liked to think.

Jeno, who was unfaltering, a constant in his life.

“It’s so weird,” Donghyuck carries on, voice practically spilling with emotion. This felt different, though. It was charged, and not because of whatever old spell ran through his blood, but rather because he had finally realised: it felt fucking good to confess what he had been harbouring in his heart for so long. “I was so worried about this. I guess I still am, whatever. It just feels nice to say it. I like Jeno Lee. I truly like this loser. I fancy the socks off of—”

It’s about then, of course, that Jeno gets tired of Donghyuck’s constant chatter for once in his life, and leans in.

Jeno’s free hand trails to the slight swell Donghyuck’s cheek first, not quite a jagged pattern but hesitant to cross the gap, to make contact. Donghyuck finds himself leaning into the touch, to go where Jeno tilts his head slightly, the briefest of feeling from his fingertips, his palm making something stir within Donghyuck’s heart.

He hopes he’s helping Jeno gain confidence in whatever he plans to do since he’s effectively shut up. Which, what Donghyuck _hopes,_ is to kiss the life out of him.

Jeno stops just shy of his mouth for a moment — like he’s about to go over the edge but needs to prepare himself a little before he can take the fall, and Donghyuck loses his patience in only a few seconds. He tilts his head to make the contact, kissing him quick but losing himself to the dizzying effect of it because _fuck_ , he just kissed Jeno.

The other boy looks dazed at the short but sweet kiss, blinking swiftly and reflexively tightening his hold on Donghyuck’s hand. His cheeks had turned a nice blushed red, invoking a little bit more of that warm feeling somewhere in the off-centre of his chest.

He carefully disentangles his hand with Jeno, cautious in his movements because he really, _really_ doesn’t want to disturb whatever they’re doing. Jeno seems to mourn that, fingers twitching but he sits still, watching quietly to see what Donghyuck will do next.

Donghyuck reaches up then, delicately picking up the other boy’s frames off of his face. Jeno mutters quietly at that, a soft _careful,_ making Donghyuck pull a scandalised face and causing Jeno to laugh to the side.

His shoulders shake a little but, after he gently tucks the glasses into Jeno’s own shirt collar, one touch from when Donghyuck moves his hands to slide across the space between his shoulders and his neck still them completely.

He moves them with a light drag to brace Jeno’s neck, then.

The younger between them is giddy, first and foremost, can’t really hide that because Jeno is just, _so fucking cute,_ as his subconscious just sort of yells periodically time and time again, but when he leans in again it’s slowly, with meaning.

“Dude, I like you so much, I’m like, losing it here,” Donghyuck sighs out between kisses, elated.

“I like,” kiss, “you too,” _kiss,_ “and would really like it if,” _kiss,_ “you would be my boyfriend.”

Jeno is smart with this play, knows he can render Donghyuck speechless if he just onslaughts his mouth as if it were the Army’s Kingdom game that he and Mark play on Thursday nights, from time to time, with kisses that stop the words entirely.

Not that the two of them kiss to destroy encampments and overtake strongholds. Not that he knows of, anyways.

“I was supposed to ask you that,” Donghyuck grumbles, leaning a little back and making Jeno miss a little, press a kiss to the corner of his mouth and it’s honestly a little weird how he likes that _more._

“Oh,” Jeno frowns, metaphorical ears flattening a little. “Go for it, then, we can do it like that.”

Donghyuck honest-to-whatever spirit that was floating the halls closest to them _giggles_ at that, and if Jeno ever called him out on it, he’d sentence him to a swift death.

“No, no,” Donghyuck says, reaching up to swipe over his cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs and squish his face in a little. “No, it was perfect. Of course I’ll go out with you, moony.”

The slow spreading smile that appears on Jeno’s face, once Donghyuck lets him breathe a little, is absolutely wonderful. It was some of his finest work, Donghyuck might add.

They stay like that for a bit, until Donghyuck realises his class is about to beginning and darts out of the courtyard. He, unsurprisingly, runs back after a moment, ducking down and smacking a huge, frankly a little gross kiss square on Jeno’s cheek with a hand braced on his neck, making the older boy squawk a little.

(Donghyuck discovers, however, over the next few hours: in between his trying not to wriggle around in excitement in the middle of class, and keeping his hands to himself at dinner, that his feelings come a lot easier with his arms wrapped around Jeno in that same alcove in the Slytherin common room, keeping him balanced on his lap and licking into his mouth something deep.)

 

*

 

After all of that, the debilitating effects of the potion seem to clear up like clouds on the day of the Summer Solstice. Who knew all it took was a little bit of honesty?

Donghyuck feels lighter than he had in a while, because keeping those feelings bottled up like that hadn’t been very good for the heart, no matter how big or small. It was embarrassing, of _course_ it was embarrassing, but he feels better now.

Even when he finds himself teasing Jisung, when he ruffles his hair gently in encouragement, he doesn’t feel shy, even though Jisung quite clearly does. When he banters with Jaemin, there are no more lingering feelings, no more worries about where they can go from here.

When he scraps with Renjun he doesn’t have to worry about whether he’s taking him seriously or not. When he presses Jeno in that same alcove he hid away in, in the first place in the Slytherin Common room after sneaking him in, he can kiss him without feeling nervous to teeter on the edge of something great.

Also, having a Potions master ace as his official boyfriend had more perks than he actually expected. Donghyuck is excused from the assignment entirely considering it was what drafted him into this problem in the first place, and because Jeno is beautiful, and smart, and perfect, he solo develops a potion of Veritaserum that passes the professors test with flying colours, meaning Donghyuck technically gets an A regardless.

It was the little things, he supposed.

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](http://twitter.com/dongjaems) | [cc](http://curiouscat.me/jeno-)


End file.
